


Catch a Breath

by Anonymous



Series: Snowy/Kent [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Consent Issues, D/s-verse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-15 23:13:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14151444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: After Snowy discovers Kent is a sub in a bad situation, sparks a league-wide scandal, and claims Kent as his own--causing an Aces-Falconers scandal--he's just happy that the season is over and he can steal Kent away to Providence.





	Catch a Breath

Kent's quieter with Tater around. He'd managed to do his knee in his last game of the season, so instead of kneeling at Snowy's feet, he's got one leg out in a brace, sitting so that it's lying close along the couch, the other bent, with Kent's chin resting on it. He has his usual Aces hat on, the black faded along the edges from wear, Kent's number stitched on the back of it in now-grubby white. It's too bad he's got it, because otherwise Snowy would ruffle his hair. Scruff it up real good until that stubborn cowlick at the front sticks out in the way that'll make Kent keep absently trying to shove it down all day.

"Alright?" Snowy asks him, coming back with a couple of beers, handing one to Kent, who pops the tab, but sets it aside, where it's out of danger of getting kicked over. He shifts when Snowy sits, making space and fitting himself in around Snowy's legs, then rests his chin to Snowy's knee instead of back on his own. "Kent?" He doesn't move Kent's hat, but he does lay his hand over the back of Kent's neck, his thumb playing over the soft bristle of a fresh haircut, fingers griping just enough for Kent to feel it.

He gets a nod and a closer lean. Snowy can't see Kent's face under the brim of the hat, but by the slight movement of his head, he'd guess Kent's keeping an eye on Tater. Which means he's not really okay, and he's not going to tell Snowy he's not okay, or what he's thinking, especially where another dom can hear. They've been working on honest verbal answers, but Snowy doesn't push for it, because they've also been working on Kent not doing things he doesn't want to. This isn't quite how Snowy had pictured that working out, but while Kent is immobilized and worrying about Tater isn't the time for correction. He has to be careful enough with those as it is, and the last thing Kent needs is an audience.

Even an audience of Tater, who might not like Kent the best, but is mostly harmless off the ice, and at the moment, bored with the baseball game they're supposedly watching, his focus shifted to snacks and chatting. Snowy's not sure what Kent thinks Tater might do, but more than that, he wonders what the fuck Kent did in Vegas when he hadn't been with his damn As, because he hasn't been handling doms that great now that he's in Providence for the off season. Maybe Snowy's only doing as well as he is because of that year he'd played with the Aces, that he'd walked away from with a Cup ring, and now, the gnawing guilt that he'd never noticed anything was wrong. 

Weird, yeah. He'd noticed things were _weird_. But there aren't a lot of subs in the league and no one uncollared and open about it, and who was Snowy to judge what Kent did to get by and to keep on top of his game. Kent's hockey was beautiful and he was wearing the C. Everything had _seemed_ like he was doing great, even though in hindsight Snowy can pick out half a dozen moments he should have looked further into. He can't think how the rest of the Aces must feel, who'd missed clues for so much longer than the single year Snowy had played for them. 

Kent makes a sudden disgusted sound and shifts against Snowy's leg. He's turned his head so he's looking at the TV, the only one of them really into the game. "Fucking Yankees," he grumbles, even though he's from New York and doesn't even care about the other team. The hate watching makes Tater laugh.

Kent looks over. " _Well_ ," he says, and gestures at the TV like the problem is self-evident. He's leaning further forward, his chin hooked over Snowy's knee instead of just resting on it, so that Snowy's leg is pressing against his throat, where Kent would be wearing his collar if it wasn't a million degrees out. At the right angle, Snowy can just catch sight of his pout under the hat.

"Boo Yankees," Tater says, obviously to humor him. Or maybe to rile him up, since his tone is almost deadpan. It's hard to tell sometimes, with Tater.

Kent obviously takes it the second way, frowning as he grabs his beer. "You're not even watching," he crabs. It's bratty. Snowy feels something loosen in his chest at the sound of it, tension he hadn't realized he was holding unspooling into warm fondness. All he wants from the baseball season himself is a solid doping scandal to draw attention from the hockey sub scandal, but at least the offensive Yankee lead is loosening Kent up.

"Look," Tater says, and gestures at himself with a potato chip. "I am sitting here--" a wave at the TV, "watching game that is so, so slow."

Kent grumbles something about disrespect into his beer, even though the game is actually kind of a grind, but he puts his head back on Snowy's knee and suffers the rest of the Yankee victory in silence, relaxing slowly as Snowy scratches the back of his head. By the time the game is over, he's at least half out, a too-warm weight against Snowy's leg. His knee brace is probably gross and uncomfortable by now, and unless he's asleep, his butt is probably uncomfortable too, from sitting on Snowy's wood floor without even a mat under him because Kent had declared it too hot for anything thicker than running shorts.

Snowy teasingly pushes the back of Kent's hat up, to see how awake he is. It tips the front down into his face, and Kent pulls back a little in a small twitch and grunts, but other than that there's no reaction.

"Game is too exciting," Tater says, dry. "I am feeling same way."

"Anything to not have to watch the Yankees win, I guess." Snowy smiles. Kent might be tired from limping around and from waking up too early in Snowy's bed, thinking he was somewhere else, but at least he's relaxing. "He's weird around doms," Snowy says, not in apology. Not even in explanation, because the explanation had been all over the place for the tail end of the season, and driven on by the Aces staying miraculously in the playoff running for longer than anyone would have expected. 

Definitely longer than Snowy had expected, with Kent hounded by the media and swinging between panic that Snowy would be angry about the interference in his own life, and worry that Snowy would be angry that the Aces were still a contender when the Falcs weren't, and guilt that he was ripping apart the Aces with scandal he hadn’t been responsible for. It had been a relief when they'd been knocked out and Snowy could get Kent the hell out of Vegas.

Tater nods at them. "So you are having me over to make friends?" He's frowning. Snowy can't tell if it's out of annoyance at him and his tactics, the prospect of being asked to befriend Kent, or just the situation in general.

"Something like that. Or at least to ask you not to break him in half if he ends up in my goal." Which Kent will. Inevitably, because Parson is the kind of speed demon who doesn't bother much with brakes.

"Plays like rat," Tater grumbles, stubborn.

Kent's hat is in danger of falling. Snowy tips it the rest of the way off, then gets his hand in Kent's hair, ruffling it up but careful not to wake him. "Nah, it's cute."

Tater huffs in annoyance--this time clearly at Snowy--and that gets a reaction, Kent lifting his head like someone's called his name, blinking in what looks like confusion. Snowy can feel his chest rising and falling, fast, but in alarm and not panic. "Just having a disagreement with Tater," Snowy tells him, keeping his hand in Kent's hair. "Everything's fine."

"My knee," Kent starts, sounding apologetic. Pulling away like he plans to get up. Snowy catches him by the back of the shirt, holding him till he stops, then puts his hand back on Kent's head, petting soothingly until Kent settles back into place.

"Your knee's fine. Relax, Parson."

"Sorry." It's soft, but he doesn't offer to do other things in place of whatever, so they're at least making headway, but he does glance at Tater real quick, like he's making sure Tater hasn't moved, or isn't looking, or something else Snowy doesn't know. 

He's in over his head. He's been in over his head since the second he'd found Parson dazed in a hotel hallway, lost like he couldn't figure out room numbers. At first, Snowy had thought the Aces had gotten a party started early and Kent was already smashed, and then he'd realized Kent was in serious subdrop, easily pushed for answers, and _then_ he'd had to think about who he still knew on the Aces that he was sure wouldn't be involved in it and could only come up with Carly, and that mostly because Carly couldn't put together a conspiracy even on a small scale and if his living depended on it.

That had been a bad idea. If Snowy hadn't panicked, he'd have realized it was a bad idea, because Carly wasn't a good ally for anything less straight forward than a hockey fight, for the same reasons that he wasn't a good conspirator. Snowy should have thought harder, or just taken Kent and called the Aces front office, or waited until Kent could give a more coherent explanation, or anything, really, that wouldn't incite a pissed off, slightly drunk Carly to storm his own team's hotel room party and start yelling.

It would still have hit the media, Snowy reminds himself. Just, maybe it could have hit the media _better_.

"Yankees win," Tater says, in case Kent had missed the end of it. Or maybe to rub it in. In either case, it gets Kent back in the present enough to give him an annoyed, flat look, the venom in it ruined by the mess Snowy's made of his hair and the sleepy weight to his eyelids. 

Snowy laughs and pats his back a little, then bends to retrieve the hat and puts it back on Kent's head, backwards and intentionally crooked. Kent, trustingly, doesn't immediately reach to fix it and that also makes Snowy smile, though also in part because Kent looks like an idiot. For a little bit longer, Snowy will get to keep him, looking dumb in his hat and in shorts cut high enough that they won't snag on his brace, and then things will start picking up again. The Falcs will start coming back from vacations and from seeing their families, and he and Kent will have to start really thinking about how to handle the Aces and the mess in Vegas. The As are out--details pending--in favor of keeping Kent, and Jeff Troy traded in, which sounds like a start, but everything is still a fucking disaster that Kent's not talking about nearly enough to be helpful. Snowy suspects that's also because Kent doesn't have a solid concept of who was and wasn't treating him alright, taken in since practically his rookie year, an uncollared sub on his own and happy to have doms who'd help keep his secret.

And then there's Zimmermann, who'd known Kent was a sub, and might--maybe, possibly--have suspected he was in a bad situation, because he's almost as twitchy about things as Kent is. If Snowy ends up in a room again with the two of them not talking and not looking at each other and exuding studious indifference he's going to do something drastic to both of them.

The TV's gone into commentary, discussing the game like it had been exciting enough to have opinions on. "Ugh," Kent says, meaning the win and not the pace of the game. "Now they want to make us relive it." He scoots back on his ass a little, then starts extricating himself from around Snowy's legs. "Gotta get up."

Kent can do it, but Snowy helps pull, then helps steady him and doesn't ask where his crutch is, because he's reminded Kent already and if it's forgotten somewhere he'll have to do something about the disobedience, and he'd rather let Kent skate easy until things settle down. Just turn a blind eye to anything that's not actively on fire, or that Kent doesn't explicitly ask for.

"Okay," Tater says, once Kent's disappeared into the other room, and then into the bathroom. Snowy looks over questioningly. "Okay, I make friends. But if anyone asks, I am saying 'who knows what Snowy is thinking. Goalie is weird, and Snowy is very good goalie.'"

It's hard to decide how Tater expects him to respond to that. Snowy goes with a wry, "Thanks."

"He go to party in Vegas," Tater goes on, and makes an exasperated what-can-you-do gesture, still doing his bit even though the whole thing had happened in Providence, and acting like Snowy had come home married, which maybe he sort of had.

"I said you could come," Snowy says, picking up his end of the shtick. Both of them frustrated with the chaos that had come in the wake of that party, but talking around the details. They'll all be made to look closely at it again much sooner than Snowy would prefer.

"I don't know Aces. And I am not wanting annoying winger. I want beer, beach, and cool breeze."

"I can do one of those."

Tater grunts. "Is good enough," he decides.

**Author's Note:**

> Off-screen past noncon or dubcon, depending on how you read D/sVerse, but it's not gotten into in detail, though Snowy alludes heavily to Kent, secretly a sub, being taken advantage of by teammates.


End file.
